Fall, the promise of cooler weather, falling leaves, football, Halloween, pumpkin spice everything, and of course, Oktoberfest. The Denver Oktoberfest celebration, one of the largest and heavily attended in the nation, wrapped up on Sept. 27 (Yes, Oktoberfest actually starts in September). With the city’s next beer celebration, Denver’s Winter Brew Fest not slated until late January, both tourists and Denverites alike will be looking for a place to satiate their thirst over the upcoming holiday months. What better place to enjoy some great drafts than some of Denver’s very own German craft breweries? View our full list of local tap rooms here. In a recent study by Trulia, “America’s Best Beer Towns for Celebrating Oktoberfest.” Denver received an 89.9 Oktoberfest index, ranking 14 on the website’s list of Metropolitan areas with the highest Oktoberfest Index. At the top of the list were Traverse City, MI, Bend, OR, our neighbors, Fort Collins, CO, and Boulder, CO, followed by Duluth, MN, Madison, WI, and San Luis Obispo, CA. So why Denver is ranked so far down on the list?
The index is the cumulative result of total number of breweries, breweries per 10,000 households, total number of bars, total number of bottle shops and percentage of German-Americans in a given area. (Whew that’s a mouthful) While we are proud to note that Denver has one of the highest total breweries of the cities surveyed at 109, it fell short in a few of the other qualifying categories. Namely, breweries per 10,000 households and percentage of German-Americans in residence. The race was a tight one and Denver missed the top 10 by only 1.2 points, losing the spot to Portland, OR, at a 91.1 Oktoberfest index. Trulia also says that “Of the top 10 metros with the highest concentration of breweries, most are in places with mountains, cold-winter weather, or pine forests.” Sound familiar? Then it should come as no surprise that our neighbors in the north, Fort Collins and Boulder, received Oktoberfest indexes of 95.8 and 94.7. Simply put, Denver and other locations along the Front Range attract home renters and buyers from across the country because they have great places in almost every neighborhood to taste local brews. Looking to try some quality German style Doppelbock, Hefeweizen, or Dunkel Bier in Denver? Check out Prost Brewing in the Highland area, Bull & Bush brew pub in East Denver and the Denver Chophouse and Brewery in Lower Downtown.